“You surely would not do me any harm?” and Juliet involuntarily glanced towards her horse, which was quietly grazing a few paces off, “particularly when I feel most anxious to serve you.”

The girl’s countenance betrayed the most violent agitation.  She turned upon Juliet her fine eyes, in which the light of incipient madness gleamed, and said in a low, horrid voice,

“I hate you.  I should like to kill you!”

Juliet felt that to run from her, or to offer the least resistance, would be the means of drawing upon herself the doom which her companion threatened.  Seating herself upon a fallen tree, and calmly folding her hands together, she merely uttered, “Mary, may God forgive you for your sinful thought!” and then awaited in silence the issue of this extraordinary and painful scene.

The girl stood before her, regarding her with a fixed and sullen tone.  Sometimes she raised her hand in a menacing attitude; and then, again, the sweet mild glance of her intended victim appeared to awe her into submission.

“Shall I kill her?” she muttered aloud.  “Shall I spoil that baby face, which he prefers to mine?” Then as if that thought aroused all the worst feelings in her breast, she continued in a louder, harsher tone, “Yes—­I will tread her beneath my feet—­I will trample her into the dust; for he loves her.  Oh, misery, misery! he loves her better than me—­than me who love him so well—­who could die for him!  Oh, agony of agonies! for her sake I am forgotten and despised!”

The heart of the woman was touched by the vehemence of her own passions.  Her former ferocity gave way, and she sank down upon the ground, and buried her face in the long grass, and wept.

Her agonising sobs and groans were more than Juliet could listen to, without offering a word of comfort to the mourner.  Forgetful of her former fears, she sat down by the prostrate weeper, and lifting her head upon her knees put back from her swollen face the long-neglected tresses, which, drenched by the heavy rain, fell in thick masses over her convulsed features.  Mary no longer offered any resistance.  Her eyes were closed, her lips apart.  She lay quite motionless, but ever and anon the pale lips quivered; and streams of tears gushed from beneath the long lashes that shrouded her eyes, and fell like rain over her garments.

Oh, love and guilt, how dreadful is your struggle in the human heart!  Like Satan after his first transgression, the divine principle, still retains somewhat of its sovereign power and dignity, and appears little less

     “Than archangel ruined.”

“Poor Mary!” sighed Juliet, “your sin has indeed found you out!  Thank heaven, the man I love is not guilty of this moral murder.  Oh, Anthony, how I have injured you!  I ought to have known that you were utterly incapable of a crime like this!”